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Divorce has destroyed my confidence with women (Updated)


Willthewanderer

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Willthewanderer

I got married to my High-school sweetheart back in 2014. Everything was great until February of 2016 when I found my wife talking to one of her friends from the state we lived in previously about how she should bring a "cock block" with her during her visit to his house so as not to end up having sex with him. Maybe there were some good intentions there, Idk. It ended our relationship. She was very defensive about it and I was as angry as I had ever been. I felt as if I had sacrificed everything and dedicated my time to working hard to provide for my family (which I succeeded in doing) while she was whoring around with her ex boyfriend from Another state. I later learned that they had a secret draft email message that they wrote on but never sent so as not to draw attention. They were writing love letters for months before I found out.

 

The whole situation was just ugly and to further compound issues, we havea daughter that had just turned one year old when all of this came about. For so many reasons, I pleaded for her to stay. For her to give our family the chance it deserved to flourish. Somehow, I allowed myself the become the aggressor and for her to play the role of the victim. She began acting as if everything she had done against me was justified and telling me that I was a narcissist with sociopathic tendencies, only hearing her own words during conversations and bashing me on social media (which I didn't use often at the time so it took me a while to figure that out) to all of our mutual friends and family. There is a lot that goes into why all of this happened and I don't believe it is necessary to explain every detail. We were both emotionally damaged by our home lives before we were together and we had to learn the hard way to deal with the tendencies that resulted from those bad situations. I will not point a finger because I want to be fair. I fear that I will make true all of the evil thing she said about me.

 

In the end, she left the State we were in to go back to her moms house. I was in a state with no family or support group and was working the night shift at a factory. There was no way I could have taken care of my daughter alone under that kind of stress so I made the hardest decision I have ever made. I told her to take our daughter back with her and that I would follow. That is what we did. I quit my job and abandoned my lease at our beautiful home and drove cross country to go back to my home town - to be there for my daughter. I ended up failing hard. Didn't have a stable place to stay and couldn't find good enough work to support me long term. Everything that I had while up north with my ex was nowhere to be found. No companies willing to give me a chance, no family that I could stay with temporarily to get back on my feet. I suffered for nearyl two years. Hopping from couch to couch, going through job after job and living situation after living situation. Only in the past six months or so have I truly been able to regain a little bit of myself and rediscover what it means to be myself.

 

Since we split, I have been dying to get with another woman. I mean, I'm twenty three. I want to f**k. But I don't know where to start. I have been to the bars, I have been out and about to all sorts of events and every day activities and I just can't figure out what is wrong with me. I discovered this site in my quest for understanding and have found nothing more than advice repeated a thousand thousand times and things I have tried.

 

All of this had just been building up since it started, I suppose, and now i feel like it will never end. I feel as if women want nothing to do with me. Like no matter how attractive or successful I am or will become, it doesn't matter. Just FYI I have a place to stay and a car and make 20 dollars an hour now. But it doesn't matter. I have no female friends from the past because my ex wifes public bashing of me shunned everyone away from me. The only people left are my oldest male friends and my blood relatives.

 

In nearly two years I have not been with a woman. Let me reiterate... I have not had a female companion of any sort. I am unbalanced without a female energy in my life and it just seems to never want to come. Some women will check me out and look as if they could possibly be interested but none will start a conversation with me and when I try to start a conversation I get the shortest nub on the end of the stick. They will say as few words as possible and be on with their lives. Phone numbers? Those are useless. Every phone number I have gotten except for the one I got from the girl I ended up marrying has resulted in no response. I feel like no matter what I will always be undesirable in some unseen way and that in order to have any enjoyment from what is left of my life I should just forget that there was ever such a thing as men and women, male and female, and just slave away at my job and take care of my daughter until it's time to die. If I could accept those terms, I would be happy to. I wish I could because I HATE feeling like this. I feel alone and there is no one there to comfort me. I need more than just sexual contact but I can't even find that. I feel broken and resentful of women at this point. When I see them I smile and nod but I think to myself that I will never be anything in their eyes and a part of me hates everything and everyone for that, even though the one that is truly to blame is me.

 

I don't expect anyone to solve my problems for me or even give me any advice that changes anything. I just needed to get this **** off of my chest to some people that will actually listen and have less of a biased opinion. Good luck to all of you out there and thank you for taking the time to read what I had to say.

 

Regards,

 

Will

Edited by Willthewanderer
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Hi Will

 

I never post in this forum, but your story touched me too much. I'm 46 years old woman and think of you as my son.

 

Please do not despair, keep looking and you will find a woman at least 100 more beautiful and loving than your ex.

 

Now the reason I decided to post is to give you an advice that I'm sure everyone here will consider a terrible one, but I'm a liberal and realistic person and don't care about mainstream opinion.

 

Try paying for sex, but be realistic and consider it a temporary solution. Don't get addicted and find a good one for that purpose.

 

This will improve your depression and will enhance your confidence and appeal with women.

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I don't expect anyone to solve my problems for me or even give me any advice that changes anything. I just needed to get this **** off of my chest to some people that will actually listen and have less of a biased opinion. Good luck to all of you out there and thank you for taking the time to read what I had to say.

 

Regards,

 

Will

 

Well, you say you don't use social media much, but have you tried online dating? There are apps for everything from long-term relationships to casual hook-ups and exposure to many women is a few clicks away. It at least gets your foot on the door.

 

I'd also work hard to keep things initially low-key. Few things are as off-putting as neediness and desperation...

 

Mr. Lucky

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BluesPower

From a practical point of view, you need to relax.

 

Yeah it is easy to say, but listen.

 

Right now, you are scared that something is wrong with you, you are desperate to get laid, and completely up tight about all of it.

 

Relax...

 

Woman, sorry girls, smell fear and desperation like sharks smell blood in the water.

 

Your outlook is your problem, compounded by you lack of confidence.

 

Relax...

 

You need to completely put getting laid out of your mind, and just be yourself. Just go out and have fun, meet new friends, got do new things, grow as a person, and live your life.

 

Relax...

 

You are young and you have your whole life ahead. Just be you, date around, casually and when it happens, it happens.

 

Relax...

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somanymistakes

It is not unusual to need time to heal and recover after a betrayal or a bad breakup.

 

You are very, very young (I know you don't feel that way and I'm not saying it to insult you - you've been through a lot!) and you have a LOT of life left ahead of you. Just because you don't have a social circle right now, that is no indicator of what the rest of your life will be like.

 

You need to rebuild your life - your whole life, not just finding a woman (for what's it's worth, I have no idea what 'female energy' in a life is). You've just barely gotten a roof over your head and a steady job right now. And those things are important, you should be very proud of what you've managed to do so far! You have had a lot of bad things happen and you are working hard to overcome them. Unfortunately the job is not over yet, you are going to have to keep working at it, keep improving. You are strong and you can do it.

 

So, you have a home and a car and a job. Good start! Now - what about YOU? What do you like to do in your spare time? What do you enjoy? Think about things other than trying to find a girlfriend. What makes you happy in itself? It doesn't have to be deep. Maybe you like photography, maybe you like dogs, maybe you like toy cars. Find the things that make you smile. If you're not sure, try some new things. Take a class, maybe. There will be other students there, so that's a chance to meet people and make new friends. Focus on making new friends first, don't head straight for a romance, because again, you need to rebuild your foundations and find your happiness.

 

When you've got people in your life to talk to and things that you enjoy, THEN you can start thinking about dating again. But don't do it by shoving your way into bars and demanding phone numbers. That game is really just for hookups and volume-churning. Someone with the persistence to try and pick up 1000 women is probably going to get a yes eventually, but they're going to rack up an AWFUL lot of no's in the process, and if you're feeling at all fragile those no's will sting and make you feel worse.

 

You can do this. You can survive. You will be okay.

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Willthewanderer

Truly, I can see what you are all saying. Maybe I do need to relax. I may be young and in the eyes of some of you who are now in the later parts of your lives, be considered a child. But there is a lot more to what and who a person is than how long they have walked the face of this earth.

 

And I will tell you another thing. No one, ever, has "their whole life ahead of them". In a sense they do, but their whole life from that point on could be no longer than five minutes. Just because I am 23 does not mean that I will live to be 24. I am not saying this to discredit anyone's advice; I agree that I need to focus on making myself happy before I will attract the right kind of person into my life. This is not the first time that I have sought council. I have read and read and read again about self improvement and attaining inner peace, etc.

 

That point being made I will not accept anyone telling me "you have so much time to figure it all out, it will all fall into place in its own time". No one knows how long any of us truly have before we will die and I intend to put effort into changing the time that I do have left rather than sitting around and wishing for things to change or waiting to grow older for my life to improve.

 

I really am not as concerned with "getting a girlfriend" as I am with feeling confident enough about myself to interact with the opposite sex in any capacity outside of a professional environment.

 

Of course I sound desperate in what I have written; it was written out of desperation. I do not portrait myself this way or act like I really wanna **** when I stand next to a beautiful woman. I'm not awkward or pushy/clingy. I just put myself down in my own mind to the point where I am totally unwilling to pursue any sort of conversation or friendship with a woman. I tell myself all of the classic bull**** like I'm not good enough for any number of reasons. I know that women (really its people in general not just men or women) can sense desperation and fear and that even the lack of self confidence shows when it is happening in the moment.

 

I do have things to fill my time though; I'm not bored and depressed and doing nothing all of the time. I am the busiest person I know. I spend just about all of the time I am not working helping people. I will hang out with a friend who has issues of their own and counsel them or give my elderly mom a ride to the store. I help my friends with their businesses by bringing customers to them and advertising. I enjoy helping people and it is essentially my hobby. There. I have something I am confident about and enjoy. You see?

 

I know how to improve my life in all of these personal ways and I truly am working hard to create those positive changes in my life. I really think that I am having serious problems overcoming and accepting that I, somewhere deep down, resent women for all of the collective suffering the women in my life have caused me and that I extend that to every woman and expect nothing less than the same treatment from them in return. For example, I will tell myself when I am battling in my own mind that I have to remember that I am less than what she would be attracted to and that no matter what kind of interaction I have with a woman initially, it will always end poorly for me.

 

Because of this stigma, I have effectively avoided obtaining any female friends in the past two years. I can worry about how to get a girl to **** me and be my girlfriend all on my own. I just can't seem to get myself to the point where I feel confident befriending women. In my eyes, now at least, they are like predators. Predators that lurk around and are just waiting for the chance to suck the life force right out of you and make you miserable and feel like **** about your very existence. So I see a beautiful woman and I say "damn, she's gorgeous, but I'm not worth her time and even if I were, is she worth mine?"

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Maybe this is a case of learned helplessness and you are becoming a misogynist. Before you become a damaged goods I suggest that you see a psychologist / therapist for counseling. It wouldn't hurt....

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I just put myself down in my own mind to the point where I am totally unwilling to pursue any sort of conversation or friendship with a woman. I tell myself all of the classic bull**** like I'm not good enough for any number of reasons. I know that women (really its people in general not just men or women) can sense desperation and fear and that even the lack of self confidence shows when it is happening in the moment.

 

Again, why not OLD? Much of the awkward "I like long hikes and sunsets" stuff is done online and you're set up with someone who's goals are the same as yours - interaction with the opposite sex. At least worth a try...

 

Mr. Lucky

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somanymistakes

Yeah, that sounds like talking to a therapist might be a good idea. If you're having trouble separating individuals from "all women", that's going to make it very difficult for you to build meaningful connections with anyone. Also, you've gone through a lot and it might be a relief to be able to vent and unload it all on someone who you don't have to worry about offending since it's their job to listen.

 

I'm not sure, but might it help to make friends with women that you're interested in only being friends with, NOT ones that you're pursuing, to help remind yourself that they're all different and that both you and they have value outside of sexual attraction?

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somanymistakes
Again, why not OLD? Much of the awkward "I like long hikes and sunsets" stuff is done online and you're set up with someone who's goals are the same as yours - interaction with the opposite sex. At least worth a try...

 

Mr. Lucky

 

 

I don't know, if I was afraid of people who would lie to me and use me I would stay FAR away from online dating. Catfish, anyone? :lmao:

 

If that didn't make sense, what I mean is that a lot of people make fake online dating profiles and use them as scams. You don't know who you're talking to. Sometimes it isn't even a woman at all, it might be a guy messing with you. Some people use online dating systems to try and sweet-talk people into giving them money and presents. Some will try to get you to exchange nudes and then blackmail you for money. And so on.

 

So it's not necessarily the best place to start if you're in a position of being worried about being lied to, because online dating sites are the #1 place to find liars and cheats.

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DontBreakEven
Well, you say you don't use social media much, but have you tried online dating? There are apps for everything from long-term relationships to casual hook-ups and exposure to many women is a few clicks away. It at least gets your foot on the door.

 

 

Seriously, just get on Tinder if that's what you need ... you'll have it by the weekend.

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DontBreakEven
I don't know, if I was afraid of people who would lie to me and use me I would stay FAR away from online dating. Catfish, anyone? :lmao:

 

If that didn't make sense, what I mean is that a lot of people make fake online dating profiles and use them as scams. You don't know who you're talking to. Sometimes it isn't even a woman at all, it might be a guy messing with you. Some people use online dating systems to try and sweet-talk people into giving them money and presents. Some will try to get you to exchange nudes and then blackmail you for money. And so on.

 

So it's not necessarily the best place to start if you're in a position of being worried about being lied to, because online dating sites are the #1 place to find liars and cheats.

 

Um, no.

 

As for money scams .. yea that doesn't happen, and if it did it's pretty simple - don't give anyone money. Ever.

 

And people rarely catfish on Tinder. It's tied to Facebook so kind of hard to finagle without coming up with some fake FB profile too. With that being said, if you think something is fishy, it's beyond simple nowadays to Google someone and find a verifying profile on some other platform. 1 out of 5 (and growing) marriages now stem from online dating. The vast majority of the people I have dated and even the good friends I have made have come from online.

 

Don't give OP false information for something you don't know anything about. It's a simple and great solution to OP's issue.

Edited by DontBreakEven
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